Saturday Morning Ride - Land of Confusion

Good morning

I'm going to chalk this one up to bad headline writing - which focuses on the confusion that some people have had due to the new, and not yet finished, L Street cycletrack, even though the article mentions that very rarely. It's a fine article that covers information most readers here already know. The only new bit of info I got is that failed Delegate candidate Bruce Majors is a frequent cyclist. Oh, if only we'd known. There is confusion, but people are probably still confused about the change of the clocks last weekend. Give it time.

There is a public meeting for the Long Bridge on Tuesday. There is talk of including a bike crossing on a replacement bridge. If that is something you're interested in, you should consider attending.

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"Lisle said new parking for delivery trucks has been provided on L Street or adjoining streets so that businesses don’t suffer. And he said the new bike lane’s width — almost 12 feet — was twice as big as some other lanes for a reason.

“There are going to be so many cyclists in the city that we wanted to give them room so they could pass the slowpokes,” he said. "

A lot of the problems stemmed from it being too wide; it is the same width as a car lane.

It would make some sense to go two-way on this, but absent that, you should narrow the bike lane down.

And no, they didn't account for the delivery trucks. On L from 24 down to 17th, there are trucks 24/7. Having them stop in the now moving traffic lanes is also a bad idea.

The bike lanes on L Street weren't so bad before. You had a choice of several of them. If one was entirely blocked by a truck, you could use the next one over. You could turn left or right from whichever bike lane was most convenient. The bike lanes were remarkably fast. There were no bollards to worry about. Unlike the new bike lanes, the old ones were shared by drivers.

I actually agree that the lanes on L st. are confusing, and found the article helpful in understanding how they are supposed to work. The lanes have improved in recent days as the bollards were added to prevent cars from using them at certain points.

These lanes are not even open, as the author suggests, but does not seem to relate it to the presence of confusion. It's like saying the I-495 HOT lanes are confusing to people and there are construction vehicles parked on them. It's not open! In my read, the article itself also has a strong anti-cyclist bend.